


The things we never say

by AstronautSquid



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Loving Marriage, M/M, Post-Movie, Pregnancy, Shatterdome Family, Slow Burn, mind-sharing, post-drift stuff gets difficult
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:12:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstronautSquid/pseuds/AstronautSquid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You never told me you masturbate thinking about me."<br/>"You never told me you were married!"</p><p>-----</p><p>Post-war many things are difficult for the remaining members of the PPDC. There are lonely fathers, expecting fathers, expecting card-deck-carrying mothers whose husbands start acting strangely, fathers happy to be with their family again, bereft daughters, best friends that might be more or not, black-market dealers whose interest in kaiju is not just about money, scientists whose sole purpose in life is starting to dissolve after the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written partly for [this prompt](http://pacificrimkink.livejournal.com/1613.html?thread=2264141#t2264141):  
> "Hermann's got a wife. He's expecting a child. But that doesn't stop him from falling inescapably head over heels with an idiotic, genius kaiju groupie.
> 
> BASICALLY I WANT GUILT, SO MUCH GUILT THAT HE EXPLODES WITH IT but not literally. Whether Newt and Hermann get together is up to the author, but PLEASE do let Newt at least reciprocate his feelings, make it a mutual love and guilt thing.
> 
> BONUS POINTS if Vanessa finds out, double bonus points if she's a likable character (because making her a one-dimensional obstacle doesn't sit well with me at all really)."
> 
> \----
> 
> The first chapters of this were written before Travis Beacham gave us details on Vanessa in canon, thus she differs from the official version. Otherwise as canon-compliant as possible.

The rotor blades cut through the air so loudly that Newt can hardly hear his own thoughts; as if they, too, are being cut to shreds.

It doesn't matter. His thoughts are still so frayed at the edges that it is hard to tell which are his own and which are Hermann's, cut up and spliced together during their Drift and now it is only slowly starting to settle, really.

Once, Newt catches himself raising his hand to wipe away blood from a cut on his forehead only to remember that, no, that was in sixth grade – no, it was _Hermann_ in sixth grade, after being pushed and crashing headfirst into a doorframe.

He glances over at his lab partner – no, his _Drift partner_ – and knows that Hermann feels his attention, just like Newt feels Hermann's unexpressed acknowledgment of the fact. The mathematician's hands are closed vice-like around his cane, as if it is the only stable thing in this moving, shifting world.

Newt looks down at his own knees, forcing himself not to study Hermann's face again like he has several times over since they climbed into the chopper. There is a nervous giggle that wants to force itself out of the back of his throat; almost hysterical, really – both the elation and the desperation of his most recent experiences.

When the helicopter alights outside the Shatterdome not much later, Newt sends an inward prayer to all the gods – Bowie, Mercury, Falco – and hastens with Hermann to LOCCENT, arms flailing and out of breath, to save the day.

As they gasp out their news it is easy, much too easy, to complete each others' sentences and nearly, but not quite fall over each other speaking, like a mismatched pair of feet that hasn't caught the hang of walking yet but stumbles forward undeterredly, without falling, just forward and around and in front of each other.

Then they watch as the world does not end.

 

The weight of their losses is grave, but not so grave that the euphoria at the announcement of Mako and Raleigh's survival doesn't sweep the two men into each others' arms, Hermann's cane inadvertedly thumping Newt's back but Newt hardly notices and buries his face at Hermann's shoulder for a moment, for an indulgent moment that has nothing to do with either himself or Hermann but merely with the need to express his relief somehow.

It is a sentiment shared by everyone, as they all break out the hugs and fist bumps and even exuberant kisses, technicians and mess hall workers and cleaners and Jaeger maintenance crews, tumbling from one to the next, a roar and murmur of voices ebbing and flowing through LOCCENT.

Hermann pats Tendo's shoulder and holds on in congratulation or self-congratulation, but they're both the same right now, and Newt even wants to hug Hercules Hansen until he notices the eddy of silence, just a bit aside from the tide, that surrounds the man. He turns away, despite the losses unable to feel too bad, even his own misery – which he knows is there, because he _felt_ it earlier like a punch in the gut. But then Hermann steps closer, and Newt would say he's being hug-baited and he's only too happy to go along with it and throw an arm around his fellow scientist. Everyone seems to grin at them, _oh those crazy scientists look they're friends after all is the world really not ending_ and Newt smiles and little do they know.

 

It's not until everyone heads outside to anticipate Mako and Raleigh's return that they get a moment to catch their breath and to talk. Everyone is still strung high on endorphins and _holy shit we survived_ and the sky is blue and dotted with clouds above them.

Newt and Hermann wind up standing a bit to the side, just out of the throng because Newt feels some residual sensory overload suddenly and he's aware of the ache in Hermann's leg after the long night. There's a curious presence at the back of his mind that makes him aware that Hermann is having the same thoughts or maybe they are not merely the same but _Newt's_ thoughts, transferred to Hermann's brain, and isn't that just fucking awesome and confusing and shit-your-pants terrifying.

Only when the choppers appear on the horizon, Super Sikorskys swarming across the blue like black hornets, buzzing and getting louder by the second, does Newt reach out and take Hermann's left hand.

„I – well, no question, but just to make sure I didn't end up with Kaiju Blue after all and am hallucinating now – there's still some residual Drift there, isn't there? It's not just me?“

Hermann nods, keeping his eyes on the sky. The buzzing is getting louder and heavier.

„Ah.“ Newt stares down at Hermann's hand in his, curving just enough to not be entirely unresponsive, then he lets go. „So then. Well. Stuff I've seen. You've seen. Kinda crazy, huh. Drifting.“

„Crazy,“ Hermann repeats and blinks up into the sun. Newt is lost there for a moment, just staring at him standing in the sunlight, a bit of a breeze in his hair, because he's sure that the number of times he's seen Hermann outside the lab in broad daylight could be counted without even adding his toes to his fingers. It's strangely eery and glorious, the way Hermann's pale skin glows and the way Newt half expects it to melt like wax from the light.

Then Hermann turns his head and looks straight at Newt.

„You never told me you masturbate thinking about me,“ he says bluntly.

And Newt retaliates with the only thing he can find, with the one thing that cuts deeper than the way Hermann just said that.

„You never told me you were _married_.“

Then the choppers are upon them and everyone's individual feelings and wishes and pains diminish before the descent of Mako and Raleigh, the last survivors of the Breach.


	2. Chapter One

„My, what a big bag of donuts you have there.“

Tendo looked up with his cup halfway to his mouth and caught just a glimpse of inked arm patting him on the shoulder in passing. His head whipped around the other way and he reached out to catch the wrist of said arm.

„The better to ride through this day on a sugar high after last night,“ Tendo quipped back but the joke didn't quite manage to climb from his lips to his eyes. Newt had stopped and turned around so he considered it safe to let go of him. „You okay, man?“

Why he asked, he didn't know. From the hurricane-tousled bird's nest he called his hair to the unravelling shoe laces of his Converse, Newt was the very picture of not okay. He mustered a lop-sided smile, however, hinging precariously on that bloodshot left eye.

„I'm fine, dude.“ Thumbs with bitten nails hooked into the belt loops of his ridiculously tight pants. Newt's voice, always a little raised and scuffed around the edges, today seemed to come from vocal chords that someone had taken sandpaper to. „Just a bit, y'know. Bit late. Slept in.“

Tendo glanced at a display in the console. Almost noon.

„You sure needed it,“ was all he said.

  
  


„ _An-an-and_ then _, he gives me like the weirdestest-ass handshake you've ever seen, man, i's like, like they invented the awkward – urps – sorry – the awkward-five just for 'im, y'know. Heh.“_

 _Tendo felt the strong urge to grab the entire remaining supply of alcohol still on the table and down it all in one go, just to drown out Newt's incessant rambling about what he seemed to think were_ Newt and Hermann's Excellent Adventures in the Boneslums ™. _But then they still hadn't reached the point yet where Newt explained why in all hells he was acting like a slighted teenager, taking revenge on someone that wasn't there by making himself as miserably drunk as possible. Right now he was draped over a couch, legs akimbo with one foot on the ground and one leg stretched out across Tendo's lap, talking not at his usual lightning speed but an unpredictable ambling pace that made for rather tiresome listening._

_Everyone else was celebrating as well, getting tipsy and, in some cases, Tendo suspected, getting laid. Celebrating the cancellation of the apocalypse, the bravery of those that had passed away and those that were still alive to pat each other on the back. As far as he could tell, only Hermann and Hercules Hansen were missing from the party._

_Tendo had pulled Mako into a big hug earlier, feeling pride and sadness for the woman that that little Japanese girl with her scuffed knees had grown up to be, strong and proud and full of grief that she didn't deny. She had dug her hands into his shoulder blades and thanked him for being there for her all these years and he had stroked her back and thanked her for saving humanity and bearing all of this weight, and they hadn't spoken a single word through all of it._

_Mako and Raleigh had disappeared a while ago, around midnight, and Tendo was idly speculating in the back of his mind if they were an item now. Not his business, of course, but whatever they were to each other, he was glad that they had it. Try as he might himself, he knew that Mako needed her co-pilot now. Someone that had been in her head and that had never once shied back from what he found there._

„ _And drifting, I – y'know, you see stuff,“ Newt went on without being deterred, hands flying like confused birds as he tried to illustrated his point. „You_ experience _it, and suddenly I was like, woah, there's this lady with her face a bit weird and she's like wearing a dress, a white one, like, y'know the kind – for gettin' hitched in,_ wedding _dress, that's it.“_

_Newt waved a hand vaguely in Tendo's face but that wasn't entirely necessary anymore because his words had caught the technician's attention again._

„ _So she's in a wedding dress, see, and we say yes and stuff and I almost get to kiss her but thethethe memory skipped right there, like a record, heh, and there's other stuff, but when I'm back conscious, in the street, y'know, I look down and I think,_ 'where the fuck's my ring' _? 'Cause it's not on my finger.“_

_Newt's hand snuck its way up Tendo's chest and to his collar to pull at it and make sure he was listening._

„ _Isn't that what you get for marrying someone?“ He scrunched his lips up, chin wrinkling. „A ring? So much trouble, I mean, all the planning and invitations and awful little aunties and embarrassing uncles and funny little place mats an' stuff, a person should get a ring for all that effort, huh?“ He shook his head in disbelief. „And then Hermann is all shakey, like; wi' a bloody eye, see, an' he goes and pukes in a -“_

„ _Wait wait wait.“ Tendo grabbed Newt by the sides of his face to make the scientist look at him. „Wait a sec, there. You're telling me Hermann is married?_ Our _Hermann?“_

„ _He's not, though,“ Newt exclaimed and his voice cracked a bit, which he tried to fix immediately with another swig of alcohol. „Our Hermann. He's not. He's_ Vanessa Gottlieb's _Hermann.“_

_And to Tendo's horror, Newt began to cry. No tears, no cries of anguish, no blubbering, just big deep dry sobs that were inaudible over the roaring music except on the inhale, that one great hitch every time that pulled his chest in and then bumped it up jerkily._

_Tendo was glad that everyone else was too busy partying and dancing and being alive to notice, additional attention was hardly the thing Newt needed right now; and he gathered those scrawny five foot six inches of broken-hearted kaiju groupie up in his arms and rocked him as he would with his own infant son, humming a song by the_ Everly Brothers _that Newt couldn't hear in the din._

  
  


„Don't overwork yourself today,“ Tendo said, knowing the futility of his admonishment. „You just helped save the world yesterday, no need to kill yourself now. Everybody deserves to take it a little easy now.“

 _And you especially_ , he added mentally, taking in the dark crescents under Newt's eyes. God knew Tendo had gotten himself a bruise or two last night helping Newt back to his room and making sure he didn't bang his head on the toilet seat puking.

„Ah, I'm just picking up some things and then I'm heading downtown to see if I can scrounge more specimens before they all disappear on the black market.“ Newt shrugged. „See if I can get hold of the fetus. If I could get the umbilical cord and take a look at kaiju stem cells, that'd be nice.“

 _That'd be nice_. Even his kaiju enthusiasm seemed dulled today.

„Take care of yourself,“ Tendo said and held a donut out to Newt. It was nigh impossible to get any vegan ones in Hong Kong, leave alone delicious vegan ones, but these five-bucks-a-pop monstrocities were sugary sin with frosting on top and hell if he wasn't going to force one down his friend's throat.

Oblivious to the violent scene he was avoiding by complying, Newt bent down and picked the donut up with his teeth. Tendo suspected that he used his full mouth as an excuse to not say anything more, but he returned Newt's thumbs-up as he disappeared down the corridor.

Good thing there was no one else in the LOCCENT right now, otherwise someone might have reminded Tendo to get back to work instead of staring after the biologist, eyes thoughtfully vacant and toying with the beads slung around his wrist. In his mind he replayed late nights watching movies with Newt or hanging out and swapping old vinyls, drinking smuggled booze and falling asleep with their elbows up each others' noses while _Please Mr. Postman_ faded away under the crackling fluorescent lamps. 

_God-fucking-damn_ , he thought.

  
  


All in all, things didn't go so badly, Newt reflected. Upon hearing at the death site of Otachi and her baby's bodies that Hannibal Chau was, against all odds, still alive, he went back to the Shatterdome to grab the single shoe he had taken with him as an unlikely souvenir of the night when he helped save the world. Shoe in hand, he waltzed into the apothecary and demanded to speak to Hannibal himself, _now_.

 _What a weirdo_ , Newt thought to himself as he made his way back to the Shatterdome with an armful of bagged specimens. He hadn't even had to press very hard to get them; in fact, Hannibal had looked at the shoe, at Newt, back at the shoe and started laughing until Newt thought his gold teeth would start falling out.

„ _Silly little fucker that you are,“_ he had said. _„I gotta hand it to you: you got chutzpah, turning up here again after everything. And I guess we kinda owe you, for saving the world and everything, although it's also your fault my kaiju supplies are gonna run out eventually. So. What do you want?“_

Newt had wanted a whole lot of things, actually, way more than he could carry. In the end he had settled for taking a pair of cuticles and a cross-section of an optical and a motor nerve with him and secured Hannibal's promise to send select other specimens and particularly a piece of the baby kaiju's umbilical cord to the Shatterdome later today.

It was early afternoon when Newt entered the lab and found it empty. The only sound was the bubbling and humming of the tanks. 

With a sigh he carefully set his new acquisitions down on a workbench and began cataloguing them. 

Concentration was hard for him to come by today. He'd done a pretty decent job keeping it together at Hannibal's, or he hoped so at least, but there was no denying that he was still hung-over as all get out. At least he didn't feel like puking anymore but his brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton candy. Well, most of it – except that small clear space at the back of his mind that he had been trying so hard to ignore all night and all day. That part that wasn't entirely his own anymore.

„Are you alright, Dr Geiszler?“

Newt shot up abruptly, letting out a squeak that was way unmanly.

„Maybe you should take the day off,“ Herc said and eyed the mess spread out across the table with a frown before he turned his eyes back to Newt. „If you're about to fall asleep with your face in a kaiju liver, that could be a sign to go back to bed.“

„'S okay,“ Newt mumbled and blinked to clear his vision. It was a lot better than this morning but at times it was still a little hard to focus on something in particular. He forced himself not to tell Hansen that the specimen was a piece of lung tissue, not a liver. „I was just thinking very hard.“

„So that's what it looks like?“

Only now did Newt really notice that Herc Hansen looked about as bad as he thought he himself must look.

„I – Marshall,“ he said. „Maybe it's a good idea for _you_ to take the day off. I don't think there will be an attack today.“

Herc mustered a weak smile. „There's a bunch of other things that need seeing to. Reports. Press statements. Paperwork.“ The corner of his mouth twitched, and so did his eyelid. „I never thought I'd sign up for this when I agreed to beat up aliens in a giant robot.“

„Mech,“ Newt corrected him without thinking. „A robot is autonomous.“

Herc's face was entirely motionless as he stared at Newt as if not entirely sure what he had just said. Then his brows drew down and he shook his head resolutely as if to shake off a thought that had been clinging on for attention all day.

„I stand by what I said,“ he said then. „Maybe you should take the day off. For once in your life take a cue from Gottlieb.“

„He hasn't been in at all?“

The corners of Herc's mouth deepened for a moment. „He's home with his wife, and good on him for that. She's seen precious little of him these past years. The man may be married to his work but there are limits, especially today.“

„Ah,“ Newt made and turned back to his workbench. It galled him that Herc had apparently known of Hermann being married for quite some time but then, he was a higher-up. He had access to all the personnel dossiers. „I guess I'll just wrap this up, then, and go to my room. Catch up on some sleep.“

Herc didn't reply but merely squeezed Newt's shoulder and something about it struck Newt as fatherly and for a moment he felt like an ass for not even acknowledging the fact that Herc had lost his _son_.

By the time he had some words formed in his head, determined for once to not just blurt out whatever crossed his mind first, Herc was already gone.

  
  


Newt woke up with a warm weight on his shoulders, something fluffy tickling the back of his neck and his cheeks. It smelled familiar and for a moment he seriously considered just burrowing deeper into the scent of the lining and napping on. Then he realised the implications of the parka's presence and blinked into the lab lights.

In his current position, slumped over a desk with his head turned to face the door, Newt couldn't see much of what was going on in the room. He could, however, hear the clack and squeak of chalk, the dry slide of the blackboards moving on their hinges.

He stayed like this for a while, letting his eyes close half-way again, but he knew he wouldn't fall asleep again right now. He observed the presence in the back of his head, shiny and smooth but a bit doughy around the edges, and resisted the urge to paw at it. He wasn't sure how much time had passed by the time Hermann spoke.

„Are you not going to say anything?“ he asked and his voice sounded very loud in the monotonous humming and bubbling of the lab. „Now that you're awake.“

„Dunno what to say,“ Newt mumbled but he sat up alright, Hermann's oversized parka sliding half-way down his shoulders. „You're in my head, figure it out yourself.“

Hermann halted, just for a second, but it might also have been a brief pause thinking about the next equation before he wrote it down with machine precision. Newt wanted to say more but he held his tongue for once. Maybe this whole silence thing would work in his favour for a change.

Minutes passed before Hermann spoke again.

„Are you alright?“ he asked, still looking at the blackboard in front of him.

„You bet your ass I'm alright,“ Newt slurred, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He squinted at the sorry state of the lenses before he put them back on, figuring that wiping them with his sleeve would only make matters worse.

„It's just.“ Hermann cleared his throat. „You seemed very drunk last night. Way beyond reason and good common sense, I may add.“

 _You weren't even there_ , Newt thought but he knew what Hermann was talking about.

„I had a few,“ he said simply.

„A few?“ Cane thumping, Hermann turned around. Finally. „You were almost passed out! And I don't know details, but I hope you have thanked Tendo profusely for helping you out.“

Newt felt ice-hot gooseprickles cover his shoulders and run down his back. 

_Bawling like a little kid, rock me steady, Tendo, there, is that what all parents do when they see grief, grab and hold it in place and rock it until it's too worn out to protest, because aren't we all still hard-wired into that shit. Don't ask me for my ring 'cause I don't know where it went, but her face won't leave my mind and won't you move please, I can hardly hear myself vomiting, hold my head, there, my hair like this. Hold it_ more _, I don't mind the fingernail scrapes, there. O_ nly trouble is, gee whiz, I'm dreaming my life away. _Who sang that? I don't know, Tendo, but keep rocking me. Gods, where is my ring? It's round my neck._

He forced himself to take a deep breath to shoo the residue away like a bunch of chattering geese.

„We can't all be fortunate enough to go home to f – make love to our wives after saving the day.“ Newt'd meant to say _fuck_ , but he wasn't that bitter, even he wasn't. There was something about it that was too crass.

„I – will – will you stop with this whole thing already!“ Newt hadn't thought it possible for Hermann to go this shade red, considering that he usually looked like a cross of a wax figure and a frog. Unless he was smiling, then he was beautiful. But he wasn't smiling now.

„It's not a thing.“ Newt wasn't sure if his urge to strangle Hermann or to kiss him was greater and even though he felt that that was in line with how things usually were, it was especially hard to decide now. „It's not my fault you never told me. I – you can't put _blame_ on me for liking you when I never even knew you were married! I didn't – didn't _cheat_ or anything. And given your grumpy ways of showing your affection sometimes, I thought I wasn't entirely off the mark. I thought you liked me, just a bit – and I've seen bits in the Drift. You don't hate me.“

The parka dropped from his shoulders and realising the absurdity of the situation, them talking to each other like this when they actually sort-of-shared a brain, almost made a giggle escape his mouth.

„Search your feelings, Hermann. You know it to be true.“

„This is not the time for pop culture references,“ Hermann said and Newt hardly even marveled at him having gotten that one.

Newt stared at him as if trying to melt his eyeballs, daring him to go on in the same tone of voice, and Hermann stared back. After a few seconds, Hermann's hand tightened around his cane and he looked aside.

„Of course I don't hate you,“ he said finally. Suddenly he appeared the age he dressed. „I'm fond of you, Newt. Very much so. We're... friends. I wouldn't have drifted with you otherwise. But, this. All this.“ He gestured vaguely. „Don't tell me _you_ know how to handle it. And I suppose I – well, I suppose I should feel flattered by your appreciation of, well, this.“ A throwaway gesture at himself. „But you'll understand if I don't know how to take it.“

„Sure,“ was all Newt could bring out because what else could he say? „ _Leave your wife and come rustle up my bunk with me, I even cleaned my room four weeks ago“_? 

„Also.“ Hermann grimaced, folds around his mouth like upside down laugh lines. „Please don't be there when Vanessa and I have sex. It feels very awkward.“

„Tell me about it,“ Newt blurted out and then didn't know whether to clamp a hand over his mouth or his eyes. There was a long pause.

„I suppose there is no way to turn it off.“

„It's ghost-drifting, man.“ Newt shrugged. „Little research into it, but nothing that indicates it goes away.“

Hermann merely closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled, and turned back to his blackboard to shut himself into his little world of numbers and logic again. Newt could feel the prickles at the back of his mind smooth out, just a bit, but the overall uneasiness stayed.

He picked the parka up from the ground again and wrapped it around his shoulders because, well, why the fuck not. He granted himself, granted _them_ a few minutes of quiet, of pretending that things were like they usually were, before he spoke up again.

„Why'd you drop by tonight, Hermann?“ he asked and eyed his new specimens – the specimens Hannibal had promised to deliver - on their trays on the next table. He'd managed to get those fixed up before passing out on his desk. „It's your day off.“

Hermann cleared his throat and wiped a string of numbers from the board with a dry sponge. A cloud of chalk dust wafted up.

„I was worried,“ he said without turning around. „I told you, Newt – I'm fond of you. I was – I had -“

„Had a hard time sleeping,“ Newt completed his sentence and Hermann made a jerky motion that might have been a nod or a twitch.

„In any case,“ he went on. „I wasn't here to celebrate with everyone else last night. It felt strange staying away. Being at home so much. And on a day like this.“

„Man.“ Newt shook his head in mock disapproval. „Getting tired of family life already, after less than twenty-four hours of it? Sure that you don't want to give me a go instead?“

Thump-a-step, thump-a-step, thump-a- _step_ , Hermann's long legs ate up the distance between them even despite the limp and before Newt could even protest, he had snatched the parka from around his shoulders and was hobbling to the door, leaving an indignant cloud of chalk dust in his wake.

„Hermann,“ Newt shouted after him and rose from his chair, but the sudden knot in the back of his mind silenced him.

„Just once, Newt,“ Hermann brought out. „Just once. Why can't you just run your words by your brain for once before you spit them out?“

The door slammed shut behind him.

  
  


Herc looked up when he heard footsteps approaching quietly. He wasn't really in the mood for soul-searching conversation.

„Are those Chuck's?“

Herc looked down at the rumpled packet of cigarettes in his hand, half-empty. Definitely not half-full. 

„Silly kid thought he could keep them secret from me,“ he said. „Even with the Drift and everything. Never said anything because I figured, hey, at least it's not drugs or crime, and once the war's over I'd get him to quit.“

Newt came to lean against the rail next to him, paradoxically looking both a little rested and even worse than before. The breeze ruffled his unruly hair as he stared across the dark bay, illuminated by Hong Kong's neon lights.

„I told him once that it's unhealthy to smoke,“ Newt commented. „Gave him a the annual average of people that get cancer and die painful deaths.“

„Did he twist your arm?“

„Grabbed my hair and made me come up with an annual average of non-smokers killed by smokers for being smart-asses.“

Newton grimaced. Herc made a noise between a chuckle and a snort.

„He wasn't stupid,“ Newt said at length. „You don't get to be one of the last surviving Jaeger pilots by being stupid. Pentecost always said driving a Jaeger's like solving a rubix cube during a boxing match. I think Chuck just didn't know what to do with all those brains.“

Somewhere in the concrete jungle there was a crash. A car horn went off, two, three. Before long the noise simply flowed back into the rest of the din. There was a lot of noise, today. A lot of music.

People were celebrating.

„Come walk with me,“ Newt said.

Herc stared down at the cigarettes in his hand. „I don't think I feel like celebrating too much,“ he said.

„Not celebrating,“ Newt corrected him. „Just walking. We don't even have to talk. I can shut up if I put my mind to it, you know.“

„I'd rather be alone, if you don't mind,“ Herc's mouth made the sounds but it was the Marshall that spoke. He didn't look to check if Newt had disappeared before lighting the first of the cigarettes.

He hadn't smoked in almost two decades. The smoke tasted as vile as he remembered it.

  
  


„ _Hey, Tendo.“_

„ _Hm.“_

„ _Say, watcha gonna do when the war's over.“_

„ _If it's ever going to be over, it's going to be a long time yet.“_

„ _Yeah, but just suppose it's over tomorrow. Or next week. What'd you do then?“_

„ _Hm. Don't know. I think I'd like to get buy a new record player. One of those vintage ones, you know. A Dansette Bermuda in red, maybe. Or a Hacker. And then I'd grab my bike and travel all over and find the last old small record stores in the world and buy a vinyl at each, maybe two. Those places are getting rare. Everybody just gets theirs over the internet these days.“_

„ _That sounds pretty cool, actually. Man, really, that sounds neat. Just you and your bike and thousands of kilometres on the quest for the next record. AC/DC should've made a song about that.“_

„ _I'll go with Buddy Holly, thank you.“_

„ _Hm. Your adventure, so I guess you get to choose the soundtrack.“_

„ _Exactly.“_

„ _...“_

„ _So what about you. What'd you do if the world's end is over?“_

„ _Man, you make it sound post-apocalyptic. Shouldn't it be, like, a positive thing?“_

„ _Post-apocalyptic just means we're still there after the apocalypse.“_

„ _Yeah, I guess, but -“_

„ _Stop nitpicking. Now. What are you gonna do?“_

„ _It's a bit stupid.“_

„ _You survived the apocalypse. You can do whatever stupid shit you want.“_

„ _I guess. Still...“_

„ _Just spit it out already.“_

„ _Well, I'd like to dig up my old electric guitar, fix it up a bit and go back to Germany. See if I can get the band back together. The_ Black Velvet Rabbits _. We used to be good, you know. Won band contests and everything.“_

„ _Huh. That's not all that stupid, really.“_

„ _...“_

„ _So what else? Come on, Newt, what else? Though I have a feeling I can guess.“_

„ _Tendo...“_

„ _Go on, say it. I'm waiting. I'm not giving you the bottle again until you've said your_ stupid _thing.“_

„ _...“_

„ _Waiting...“_

„ _Alright, shut up. Stop doing that thing with your ear. I. Well. I suppose I'll ask Hermann out.“_

„ _D'awww – oof!“_

„ _That's what you get for being an intolerant prick. Dude.“_

„ _I'm not being intolerant. I fully support your schoolboy crush on the most unlikely person in this universe. I'm just wondering where you'll go.“_

„ _Huh?“_

„ _For your date. You gotta go somewhere for a date. You guys can't just stay at the Shatterdome and bicker like an old married couple. That would be just another work day, not a date. You have to go and bicker somewhere else.“_

„ _Well, I guess. I thought we could go to the observatory. There's a really good one in Berlin, with a planetarium attached. It's kind of small though. Not even lights for the parking lot, so you have to come with a flashlight to find the entrance.“_

„ _You'd go to Berlin with him on a date? Isn't that more like a honeymoon thing?“_

„ _Oh, shut up. I guess they have planetariums elsewhere too. Here in Hong Kong?“_

„ _No, you just go to Berlin. It's after the apocalypse. You can do whatever the fuck you want.“_

„ _Yeah, I guess.“_

„ _And you can do_ who _ever the fuck you want, no matter how unexpected… Is that a blush? Are you seriously blushing, Newton Geiszler?“_

„ _Shut up before I break one of your vinyls over your head. Take that!“_

„ _Stop that! Hah, okay, I surrender, just – dude, stop it.“_

„ _Your own fault. Gimme the bottle. Gimme. Gimme.“_

„ _Sheesh.“_

„ _...“_

„ _Newt?“_

„ _Hm?“_

„ _I really hope you get to go to Berlin.“_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The two songs mentioned are "All I have to do is dream" by the Everly Brothers and "Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes.
> 
> Concrit welcome.


	3. Chapter Two

Hermann didn't stop on his way out of the Shatterdome. He was too upset to slow down because he was afraid of what thoughts might come with a more introspective pace. Before long, however, he was forced to halt by a street corner to put on his parka because it was windy this close to the shore. It wasn't even cold, Hong Kong climate being what it was, but sweat and wind were rarely a good combination. For a moment he cursed his limp because without the cane he would have just put the parka on while walking.

The jacket smelled faintly of Newt – chemicals, sweat, shower gel - and it made something in Hermann's knees go a bit funny as he slipped it on and then turned down to the left.

Around him, the world was celebrating in its own ruins while it rebuilt them. There were bright lanterns and people dressed in white, the Chinese colour of death, stalls selling piping hot steamed buns and cracker trucks and families picking through the rubble of their homes, music blasting from every window and children with tattered clothes begging for some coins.

The first two times Hermann stopped to hand out what little cash he had but then he ran out of coins and had to shake his head at them, heart dropping with every pair of small hands that folded up in resignation.

He pulled up the hood of his parka, stuffed his fists into his pockets and trudged on. The damp air made his leg sting.

„ _Yeah, it sucks, but hey – you get to say_ „Ah, there's a storm coming – I can feel it in the old war wound“! _Like some grizzled old commander or maybe a pirate captain, you know, one with phantom pains in his wooden leg when the seas are stormy...“_

The words floated through his mind unbidden. A fragment of a conversation he had had with Newt when they had first met again years after leaving Kodiak Island.

Thankfully, Hermann didn't have to wait long for the tram to arrive. The area that had been damaged by the last kaiju attack on Hong Kong did not intersect with the line. He climbed into the carriage and swiped his Octopus card over the reader. With a frown he noticed that his balance was now negative thirty-four Hong Kong dollars.

The ride tried to lull him into a daze but Hermann forced himself to stay awake. His Chinese extended only so far as that he could recognize the most necessary hanzi, including the name of the stop that he had to get off at, and he couldn't rely on the names of the other stations to tell him how long he had to go yet. Mathematical genius though he was, his linguistic skills were limited to German and English garnished with bits of Latin that had stuck from his student days at Marie-Curie-Gymnasium.

It wasn't hard to stay awake, though. The motor's hum was monotonous and so was the swing of the slings for people to hold onto, dangling from the ceiling, but his insides were still in a turmoil. An insistent gnawing in his guts, coupled with the upset that he felt drifting through the distance from Newt, kept him from dozing off. An irrational urge to go back and wrap him in his parka again arose suddenly and was as suddenly squashed in dismay.

When he descended onto the street he didn't turn homewards immediately but made a brief detour to the nearest Wellcome. The supermarket's red sign, declaring its name in yellow hanziand white western letters, glowed like a beacon in the early night.

Hardly ten o'clock. Even though it made Hermann uncomfortable where the knowledge came from, Newt had been right. He hadn't slept very well, kept awake by a vague nausea and brief flashes of Newt being absolutely, soakingly miserable. Hardly the kind of thing to encourage a good night's sleep.

He picked up a bag of liquorice. It wasn't Vanessa's favourite kind, but Danish liquorice was hard to come by, even in Hong Kong where food was not rationed. Hermann's heart gave a small skip of fond surprise when he realised that rationing would no longer be necessary now. No more kaiju to fight off. No more PPDC posters urging people to „do with less so they'll have enough,“ accompanied by pictures of Jaegers and their pilots. Although for the past years it had been construction workers on the Wall that had been pictured, not pilots.

On his way to check-out the wall with newspaper stands caught his eye. More specifically, the cover of an English newspaper with Mako and Raleigh's faces plastered across the cover – old portraits a journalist must have dug up from Raleigh's glory days as a pilot and Mako from an interview that had apparently been conducted years ago when the world wanted to catch up with the little survivor from Tokyo whose picture had gone around the world. There was also a smaller inset of Otachi and Leatherback's corpsesand a diagram of something or other.

_The Pilots that saved the world. Deaths of Stacker Pentecost and Chuck Raleigh confirmed – how will the world grief for some of their most beloved pilots? Raleigh Becket's return to the PPDC – turning point in the war: How this all-American boy saved the world._

Hermann felt something hot well up in the pit of his stomach and he wasn't sure whether to buy the newspaper or to rip it to shreds. Gossip. Shovelling all praise onto Raleigh's undemanding shoulders. No headline for Mako alone. Neglect of all the smaller things and sacrifices that had made this triumph possible.

 _Oh God, why wouldn't he stop twitching? That trickle of blood down his upper lip, into his mouth, the serpent that bit its own tail and was devoured by its own greed in return; no, not greed,_ thirst _, thirst for knowledge that would one day cost him everything._

He had to force his hand to relax around the grip of his cane again, wiggling finger after finger to ease the tension out. Turned his back on the newspaper stands. It wasn't their fault. They couldn't know. There had been orders to keep the drift with the kaiju a secret and although Hermann didn't think it could last forever, the silence held.

At check-out he remembered to recharge his Octopus card – if it dropped below negative thirty-five dollars he couldn't use it until recharging –, left a generous tip for the cashier – because she had survived the apocalypse, just like him - and stuffed the liquorice into his pocket before making his way home.

They lived on the ninth floor of an apartment building, just far enough from the Shatterdome that Hermann could breathe at least a little easy, but well-connected through several tram lines. Not too central. Somewhere that didn't remind Hermann of the PPDC. Except, of course, there was no place these days that one could escape the war.

 _Not anymore_ , he thought.

The flat was nothing special but it was enough. Large even, by Hong Kong standards. Bedroom, spare room. Kitchen, bath. A living-room whose windows faced west, just right to catch the evening sun when it sank between two buildings across the street.

Hermann took off his shoes and parka with meditative slowness before making his way into the living-room.

Vanessa was asleep on the sofa.

Her hair spilled out from beneath her cheek, waves below marked skin. One arm dangled from the sofa's edge, the other rested across her swollen belly. From their stands on a shelf, her mask collection gazed down at her with hollow eye sockets, red and gold and black and more.

Hermann felt his face soften, all those little muscles that he didn't even know the names of and that he held tense all day without even noticing.

There was a DVD blathering in the background; a recording of the last International Astronautical Congress in Canberra, apparently. Notes and the ever-present deck of playing cards littered the coffee table and spilled onto the floor, almost obscuring a copy of the very newspaper that Hermann had stared at in the supermarket.

He pushed it aside, careful to not bring disorder into the notes – although he wouldn't have been able to assign an order to them, really – and sat down on the edge of the coffee table, sighing at the weight being taken off his leg.

For a moment he allowed himself to sit there and rest. To simply breathe and enjoy being home.

Vanessa shifted a little and brought her right arm to wrap around her body too. Gathering warmth.

As Hermann rose again he cursed his leg briefly for being such a hindrance sometimes. How nice it would have been to carefully pick her up and carry her to bed so she could sleep more comfortably. He was under no illusions, though – she stood two fingers taller than him so he would likely have had trouble carrying her even with two healthy legs, and it probably wasn't a good idea anyway to haul a pregnant woman around like a sack of flour.

When he returned from the bedroom with a blanket – today seemed to consist of a lot of draping sleeping people in warm covers - Hermann switched off the ceiling lamp and turned on the light on the coffee table instead.

„ _Igel_?“

 _Igel_. Hedgehog.

Hermann halted. He had just been about to lay the blanket over her.

„Do you want to stay here?“ he asked. „I got you a blanket. But I'd rather you go to bed, _Kartenmädchen_. I don't know how healthy it is to sleep on the couch. Especially in your condition.“

„Oh, I was just napping,“ Vanessa gave back and yawned, a yawn fit to make a lion blush in shame. „What time is it?“

„Half past ten.“ Hermann took the hand that stretched towards him in both of his. His fingertips met the smooth band of gold on her ring finger and he pulled it closer to kiss the knuckle.

„Mmh.“ She smiled lazily. „Where are your spines, _Igel_?“

„Taking the day off,“ he sighed and lowered her hand again. „Or rather, they've had enough for today and are now off from work.“

„Oh?“ Pulling her hand from his, Vanessa pulled herself up and shifted to lean against the backrest. „Isn't it the same thrill anymore, working without the fate of the world resting on your shoulders?“

Her voice was tenderly mocking.

Hermann merely shrugged. He didn't want to think about work now that he had escaped it. Or rather, it had been Newt he had escaped, but he wanted to think of Newt even less.

„How's your eye?“ She squinted at his face in the dim light. He had told her it had happened at the site of Otachi's body, which wasn't a lie at all. He simply hadn't mentioned that it had happened while he was plugged into a kaiju fetus's brain with Newt.

„Getting better, I think. I got you something.“ He retrieved the liquorice from his parka and was rewarded with a kiss when he handed it to his wife.

Once awake, Vanessa was a bit drowsy but reluctant to go straight to bed and so Hermann made some tea and joined her as she rewound the DVD to the last bit she could remember, gathering her papers in her lap and jotting things down as she watched. He ran fingers through her hair, gently gathering and twisting the premature grey streaks marbling it like a riverbed stone, and tried to think of nothing.

Truth to be told, he wasn't too keen on going to bed. He was afraid of the quiet that would allow that place in the back of his head to spread, opening like a hand waiting to be taken. He was afraid of the things he would see in that drowsy world between waking and sleeping. It had been hard enough catching even an hour or two of sleep last night in between the feeling of Tendo's fingers in his hair, holding his head so he didn't knock it against the porcelain, and the heaving of misery and alcohol combined. Even if they weren't his, every time he would start awake as one does when a particularly realistic nightmare reaches its gruesome climax.

Eventually, however, Vanessa's yawns became ever more frequent and when she misspelled the same word three times in three attempts and tossed the pen at the television, they reached an unspoken decision to go to bed.

„What's that you're humming?“ Vanessa asked as she slipped off her bra.

„Hm?“ Hermann blinked.

„That melody. You've been humming it on and off for the past hour.“

„Oh.“ Hermann stepped into his pyjama bottoms and frowned. „I'm not sure. Tendo could probably tell you, though. He's been humming it last night.“ Once he realised what he had just said he cleared his throat. „Today, I mean.“

„I think it's definitely past your bedtime,“ Vanessa mocked gently as she climbed into bed, a bit awkwardly so with her belly. „It's a miracle you're not falling asleep on the spot.“

„On this spot, I wouldn't mind,“ he muttered as he rested his cheek against her breast. Her fingers began carding gently through his hair, rubbing all the tension from his scalp. For a moment he was tempted to angle his face up and take one of those fingers in his mouth and proceed from there – but, he thought with sudden regret, he didn't want to risk a repeat of last night. Not now.

Before long her hands stilled, one finger hooked loosely into the chain around his neck that held his ring, and she breathed softly into his hair as she slumbered. Hermann, however, took another hour to fall asleep, trying hard not to think of that bubble of loneliness floating behind his mind, threatening to burst.

 

 

 

Newt wished that his shoes were more squeaky.

It was hard to believe that this was what he had come to after decades of striving for scientific excellence, gathering up doctor's titles like candy, revolutionising the field of artificial tissue replication and saving the world from being crushed by monsters from another dimension, but there you go. Right now, all his wishes and desires were summed up in an urgent yet silent skyward plea for his shoes to start squeaking. Or for something, _anything_ , to break the silence in the lab, really.

Hermann was standing with his back to him, working away at his blackboard as if there was another apocalypse coming up, and although they never made much small talk as such, their days were normally structured around bouts of banter, of bickering back and forth across the room. Today no word had been spoken beyond Hermann's request for Newt to turn off his music when he came in to work, and it was almost evening already. Even in the mess hall, Hermann had seated himself away from Newt, leaving the biologist alone with Tendo.

From where he was dissecting the umbilical cord, Newt had a good view of Hermann.

_Stuck, huh. Been staring at that equation for two minutes now and – ah – there he goes, there goes the chalk from hand to hand, hovers over the board, taps it, oh, down again, bad idea after all. Left, right, there it goes again and it twists in his fingers and up it goes and he's got it._

With that, the board was full – the lower half had already been covered in a continuation of something else – and Newt knew what came next. With a connoisseur's eye he observed how, in one unconscious flow of movement, Hermann shifted his weight to the right, the cane up to pull the board aside, getting the strength for the movement not out of his arm but his weight shift to the left; the board began sliding and because the rails were kept well-oiled it slid on its own while he lowered the cane again and caught his moving weight by putting it down.

It was a routine that Newt had observed so many times he could have done it himself in his sleep if asked and it never failed to astound him how, bumbling and uncoordinated though he could be, Hermann managed to work around his leg without so much as a thought.

For a moment longer Newt stared with vacant eyes until he noticed that Hermann had written three more lines without his even noticing. Newt bit the inside of his cheek and looked down, focusing on his own work again.

It had never been as clear to him as today: how intimately he knew Hermann, from how he had his tea – strong, no sugar – to how he would bite his nails when thinking, but only the left hand, never the index finger. He knew Hermann's nervous habit of putting on and taking off his parka several times throughout the day as if perpetuously uncertain whether he was cold or not and the way he would subtly shift his weight once sitting down, to make his leg as comfortable as possible. Heck, Newt had been inside his brain and they still shared part of their minds, possibly – _scaryawesomemindbendingholyshityes_ no - forever.

And it had never been as clear how little he actually knew about the mathematician beyond the lab.

They had vaguely known each other back when Newton had enlisted with the PPDC and worked on Kodiak Island for a while, back in 2016 when Hermann had already been on the job for a year. Their interactions had been limited to glimpses of each other in the corridor or the mess hall and to seeing each other during kaiju science meetings. Then Newt had been sent to Los Angeles to gather what information he could from the remains of Yamarashi's corpse and they hadn't run into each other again until they were assigned to work together in Anchorage in 2021.

 

 

 

„ _Wow, so you did the programming on the first Jaeger? Man, that's so cool! I have a Brawler Yukon action figure! I keep it next to my Karloff, just looks a bit funny because the scale is totally off. Toy companies, huh.“_

„ _I - thank you. Although most of the praise should go to Drs. Schoenfeld and Lightcap, of course. Their visions and scientific spirit brought us here.“_

„ _Hm, sure. And now you're helping out with Gipsy Danger's restauration?“_

„ _Just fixing up little things in the programming. This is Mako Mori and Tendo Choi's project and the credit is entirely theirs. My main purpose is not in Jaeger building.“_

„ _So modest, huh. Still, a bit of a shame, isn't it.“_

„ _What is?“_

„ _That we finally have contact with alien life forms, awesomeness on a scale we never even dreamt of, and all we can do is kill it. Pity.“_

„ _...“_

„ _Hermann?“_

„ _I need to get back to work. Excuse me.“_

After three days of silence Hermann snapped.

Newt felt it coming, kind of, in the way that static builds up in the air before a thunderstorm. He still wasn't sure how their post-Drift connection worked, seeing that it seemed to be a bit random in when and how to pipe up more strongly. Sometimes Newt would catch emotional flashes in the evening, sensations of being snuggled up with someone, even though he was most definitely alone in his bed or, once, hanging out in Tendo's room until one in the morning. There would be glimpses of anxiety. Indecisiveness. And sometimes, most disturbingly, of affection or arousal. It didn't do much to improve his mood.

_Ping._

Newt's head shot up at the sound. There was a white mark on the floor where the chalk had bounced off the metal.

It was the first time in three days that Hermann looked him in the eye and Newt's hands tightened unconsciously around the piece of tissue he was holding, squishing goo onto the floor.

„Newton.“ Hermann looked as serious as he sounded. „Newton, this can't just – we can't go on like this forever. I don't know about you but I find it quite unbearable.“

„I miss arguing with you,“ Newt said earnestly and lowered the tissue to its tray. „And talking to you. Really.“

Hermann cleared his throat, eyes darting aside.

„Me too,“ he admitted finally.

 _Fill the room with words and tug at my nerves like my hair, sstop being miserable like this_ , was what he didn't say but it came across.

„It's very hard for me to concentrate or to sleep properly if I constantly get this residue,“ Hermann went on. „All – all those _feelings_. I can't afford not to concentrate on my family now. I'm going to be a father, Newt.“

 _Newt_.

 _I know_ , Newt thought but didn't say anything.

„Don't be selfish, Newt,“ Hermann said and frowned. „Don't ask for things you can't have.“

The trays clanged into each other as Newt slammed his hands down on the table.

„Can I ask about things I don't want to have then?“ he snapped. „Like the fact that you're married? Why the fuck did you never tell me anything?“

„Because it's none of your business!“ Hermann shot back and tossed his cane to the ground with a clatter, reaching out without thinking to steady himself with a hand against the edge of a blackboard.

„It _is_ my goddamn business if I have memories of marrying her or of holding her when she lost her fucking job!“

Hermann looked as if Newt had struck him across the face and for once, he didn't bring out a word in retaliation. Rare enough, that.

Newt didn't take the opportunity to enjoy the fact. He pressed his teeth together and went to pick up Hermann's cane. He knew the limp wasn't psychosomatic but that it always got worse when Hermann was agitated. Excitement always reduced his motor control to near-zero.

He had to forcibly uncurl Hermann's fingers to press the cane into his hand.

„I guess you've also seen some things you didn't wish to see,“ Newt sighed.

„You could say that,“ Hermann rasped out, then cleared his throat. „I could have done without some of the more sordid details.“

„Call my love life sordid once more and I'll take that cane back and hit you in the head with it,“ Newt said.

There was a lengthy silence. Hermann stared aside stubbornly, fixing his gaze on a nearby tank with something tentacle-y in it.

„When'd you two meet?“ Newt asked finally.

Hermann raised his brows. „You don't know?“

„We drifted for a few minutes only.“ Newt shrugged. „Don't tell me you got more than lots of random moments.“

The corners of Hermann's mouth sank deeper into his skin for a moment. „No.“

„Well, then.“

They ended up sitting down, Hermann on the battered old couch, Newt on the edge of the next best table, feet dangling idly as he listened.

 

 

 

_Hermann's throat was closed with shame._

_He felt humiliated – not even by anyone that was present, for there was no one sitting next to him on the bench. No, he could already hear his father's words on how it was his own fault, what with his still being with the PPDC. „_ I told you, they're going to cut the funding next year, it's all in the pipes already – if you want to continue playing with over-sized toys, don't complain if real life makes you pay.“ _While Lars Gottlieb huddled behind the wall that he helped construct. Like a child hiding inside a pillow fort, fooling itself into thinking that the adults wouldn't find it._

_The sky was full of clouds, chased by a July wind that couldn't decide whether it should blow or not. Summer in Germany could be treacherous, temperatures swinging up and down from day to day, and against all reason there were some dead leaves blowing through the park. Occasional patches of sunlight warmed his bones but even that wasn't enough to cheer him up right now._

_He had needed to get out, though. All of his mother's fussing over his injury, his own constant arguments with his father – whose involvement with the wall construction took place over a considerable distance via e-mails and conference calls -, the fact that there was precious little to do in sleepy little Garmisch-Partenkirchen. He had already made phone calls to look at a flat of his own for the rest of his recovery time, although nothing definite had been decided yet._

_Taking a day trip to Munich and a walk through the English Garden had seemed like a good idea at the time. He wasn't a cripple –_ you _are_ , though _– and everything be damned if he couldn't even go for a stroll by himself._

_Now he was here, stuck on this miserable park bench by himself, and was so furious – with the world, with himself, with his damn leg, with the stupid sunshine – that he had to bite back tears of frustration and pain both._

_If only the accident hadn't happened. Experimenting with different methods of fuelling Jaegers other than nuclear reactors was an arduous process, but so far none had ever exploded and triggered a chain reaction of destruction. Hermann hadn't even had anything to do with the engineering itself, he'd just been at LOCCENT to watch during his coffee break._

_It had taken hours on the operating table to pull all the glass shards out of his body. The one stuck in his spine left damage he was never going to recover from entirely._

_Hours later it had come out that it hadn't been an accident at all; that someone had intentionally placed explosives in the tank._

_Days later the culprit was found and revealed to be one of those – literally - violently opposed to the continuation of the Jaeger program, a minority within the kaiju cults. Kaiju were sacred messengers, therefore their killing was an act of sin and the Jaeger program an abomination that would bring damnation upon everybody._

_Hermann couldn't even bring himself to hate the man upon learning that he had been sucked into the cult after his children had been killed by a Jaeger operation, one of whose pilots had been illegally intoxicated while on duty. His wife had committed suicide shortly after. Hermann just felt worn-down and wondered how he hadn't died._

_His crutch was leaning uselessly against the bench. He had stubbornly left the other one behind at home, considering himself fit enough to get by with only one. Hermann wanted to kick at it irritably but the attempt merely sent a white flash of pain across his vision. Wrong leg._

_The tears were seconds from spilling when something slapped against his face._

_Instinctively, Hermann put his hand over it and registered with confusion several small white pieces of cardboard blowing past him, carried by a particularly strong gust of wind. He peeled the playing card from his cheek while he watched a woman, around his age, hurrying after the other cards, more of them spilling from her pocket as she ran._

_When she had caught the entire deck bar that last card, her eyes fell upon Hermann who silently raised the hand holding it._

„ _Thanks,“ she breathed in relief as she took the card – an ace - and slid it into the pocket of her long brown dress with the others. „I shouldn't have been practicing card tricks with – are you alright?“_

_She glanced at his eyes, unspilled tears still treacherously present, and at the crutch._

_That was how Hermann met Vanessa Schnuppe, standing so tall she blocked out the sun and he could hardly see the scars against the light._

_They spent a long time on the bench, talking. Just about this and that. That he was German but had been working abroad for years. That she was an astrophysicist but also moonlighted as a croquis model and always kept a deck of cards on her. That he had been in an accident at the Lima Shatterdome and had been forced by his superiors to spend his recovery time actually resting and recovering. That she was afraid of the future because with the end of the world ahead at the hand of deep sea monsters, no one was very invested in the stars anymore and funding for astronomy programs was getting increasingly scarce._

_In the end, she brought him home, supporting his left side while he used the crutch on the right, and drove him all the way to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in her crammed blue car, stuffed to the roof with odds and ends._

_It was only when he had already climbed out of the car – refusing her help because he was steeling himself for what was to come – that he asked her for her number. A lunch meeting, his treat, as thanks for her help._

_Ten minutes later Hermann was still standing in the street and staring down the road, fingers curled crumbling-sweating-tight around the playing card Vanessa had pressed into his hand before driving off. There was a number scrawled on the backside._

_So that's why he calls her_ Kartenmädchen, thought Newt. _Card girl._ There had been several flashes of that flame-faced woman with her hands full of playing cards.

He didn't say a word, though. Hadn't said a single world throughout the entire story and merely stared down at his feet. He hadn't even known how Hermann had gotten the limp – it had always just been a fact and Hermann had never said anything of his own. He hadn't even known when it had happened. Or that Hermann's father had worked on the wall.

„Stop it,“ Hermann said. „Stop it, Newt. Right now.“

„Stop what?“ Newt asked sullenly but he still didn't look at Hermann. He was afraid of what he'd see.

„Stop being so jealous,“ Hermann said. „I can feel it. It's eating you up. It's eating _me_ up. Goddammit, you _asked_ how I met her! You _wanted_ to know! But as soon as you get something, all you want is more! Just always more, Newt, doesn't it ever run you dry?“

Newt pressed his lips together tightly but his eyes narrowed a bit. Just when he was about to say something, though, something so poisonous it would have made Kaiju Blue look like a joke, Hermann pulled himself up from the couch with a grunt.

„Listen, Newt.“ The cane thumped. „Look at me. Look at me, Newt.“

Reluctantly, Newt obeyed. He wasn't sure he had ever seen Hermann this disarmed, this worn down and fucking angry. Not even last night.

„I made a deal with the Marshall for Vanessa to be able to use a PPDC-sanctioned shelter for every kaiju attack. She wouldn't stay behind because that's not who she is, but trust me that during every kaiju attack, _every – single – one,_ I didn't spend a single second not thinking about her, praying – yes, _praying_ , unscientific as that may be – that she would be alright and nothing would happen to her. I just want her to not be involved in any of this, I want my private life to be that. Private.“

He inhaled deeply and left the breath out again loudly, shoulders falling. Newt could feel something small and frightened in his head trembling.

„Until five days ago happened. And suddenly you're there, all the time, _in my head_ , no matter the time, no matter the occasion. I feel what you feel. I know what you're thinking. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but it's always there. The kind of thing no human being ever experiences with anyone else. And it's terrifying. I like you, Newt, I really do, I told you, I wouldn't have drifted with anyone else - but suddenly there's all this affection and sticky feelings and urges and it's changing what my life is like, what _I_ am like, and I'm in the middle of becoming a father. I have a history with Vanessa. She's been my one fixed point for years and I married her. For a reason - because I love her. I don't want to hurt her. I don't want to hurt myself. I don't want to hurt _you_. And I don't know how any of this could be happening without somebody getting hurt.“

Newt squeezed his eyes shut, just for a second.

„That was one long, serious motherfucker of a speech,“ he said.

Inside his mind, something snapped shut like a clam. Hermann.

He was spared having to come up with more to say because that was when Hercules Hansen marched in through the door, oblivious to the situation he had just walked in on.

„Dr Geiszler,“ he said curtly and jerked his thumb at the door. „If I have to listen to Tendo for one more minute bitching and moaning about you being late for your movie night or whatever, I'm going to bloody kill him by strangling him with that bowtie. And them I'm going to strangle _you_ with kaiju guts. For the love of God, wrap up your little pet shop of horrors in here and make your way down to LOCCENT, _stat_.“

Newt pulled a face and cast a quick glance at Hermann as he jumped off the table. Hermann was decidedly not looking at him.

„And as for you.“ Herc's eyes honed in on Hermann. „The world is not ending anymore. You could take days off, if you wanted to, but if you're not going to, at least spend not more than the required work hours shut up in here. You have a pregnant wife at home. So _go. Home._ “

And what could either of them do with orders like these but obey?


	4. Chapter Three

The movie night with Tendo had quickly turned into a sleepover when Newt fell asleep with his face buried at the technician's shoulder, drooling into the cotton of his vintage shirt. Tendo hadn't asked for a reason, not even the next morning when he had woken up by falling out of bed because it was not very large and Newt was a complete space hog.

Newt appreciated Tendo's lack of inquiry. What was there to say that he hadn't said yet, at some point or other? All that had occured on Thursday night could be summed up with, „I'm ridiculously in love-slash-lust with this stuffy idiot, he's married and faithful as all get out and through our crazy-ass mental connection I know that he does feel _something_ and it's driving both of us nuts, but for different reasons.“ 

Because Newt was overbearing and rash and socially incompetent sometimes – heck, most of the time -, but he wasn't delusional. There was _something_ there. Newt could feel how Hermann's thoughts drifted to himself, over and over, even late at night, and sometimes they snagged on the „sordid details“ Hermann had said he could have done without. What was it again? _„Affection and sticky feelings_.“ Well, that about summed it up.

It didn't change anything, though. The fact was that Hermann was a married man and loved his wife and things like that took precedence over smooshy little fancies a man like him might irrationally harbour for kaiju groupies. 

With no impending apocalypse ahead the people that weren't essential to the Shatterdome's maintenance and smooth operation could actually have proper weekends. Newt knew that the Marshall would make Hermann stay home and took comfort in the fact that he only had to survive one more day in the lab with him before Saturday rolled around. Sunday... Sunday was going to be a different matter again.

„Tell me when you're going on your crazy record store round-the-world trip and I'll pay for the fuel,“ he said and blew cautiously on the coffee that Tendo had brought in the morning, when Newt was still too bleary to move out of bed. „I need to repay you for all this taking-care-of-me shit or my karma imbalance will be so bad I'll never get out of the seventh circle of hell. Or Shangri-La.“

„Get your religions straight,“ Tendo said simply and slapped another nicotine patch on his arm, above the rosary around his wrist.

„That amount of nicotine patcheshas to be unhealthy,“ Newt remarked and eyed the twin patches below Tendo's rolled-up sleeves.

Tendo didn't reply but merely raised his own caramel soy latte to toast Newt.

When they finally made their way from Tendo's room to LOCCENT, none other than Hermann came down the hall the opposite way, probably to go talk to Herc or something like that. Newt cast him a brief glance but didn't say anything when all that weird fuzzy stuff started going off in his brain again. He was embarrassingly grateful when Tendo rested an elbow on his shoulder and wished Hermann a good morning. Hermann nodded back.

„You guys gotta get a grip on this eventually,“ Tendo remarked once they were out of earshot and sipped his latte calmly. „He looked like he was about to bite off the tip of his tongue. You're hopeless, both of you.“

„Tell me about it.“ Newt shrugged Tendo's elbow off again and turned down the corridor to the lab.

It didn't improve his mood that all throughout the day, Newt could tell that Hermann was sorry, in some weird-ass irrational way, and that he was fumbling for a way to apologize for something that he felt he actually shouldn't. It was all way too complicated and Newt simply fed himself every little bit of anti-social, annoying, stuck-up behaviour Hermann had ever graced the lab with in the hopes of turning himself off the man. It didn't help.

They didn't speak until Hermann made to leave in the evening. He hesitated for a moment in the doorway and Newt looked up to catch his eye.

„Are you doing better?“ Hermann asked and thumbed absent-mindedly at the fraying lapels of his blazer.

„Yes,“ was all Newt said.

„Tendo is a good friend.“ 

Hermann even tried for a bit of a smile, though it came out so lopsided that Newt could see it teetering on his lips. Newt tried to read more into his words, tried very hard indeed to detect even an iota of jealousy, maybe, in response to the glimpses he must have caught of Newt bunking up with Tendo last night. He couldn't find anything and felt silly immediately.

„Yeah,“ Newt said.  
  


  
  


  
  


„Still at work?“

„Hm.“

„What's up with that face? Did Hermann say anything?“

„No.“

„Are you up for going downtown tonight? There's an anime theme song night at this karaoke bar I know. Should be right up your alley.“

„Mmyeah.“

„Or maybe you should just go and lie down before you kill yourself with all this reckless enthusiasm.“

„Tendo...“

„Sure.“

  
  


  
  


It was a bright day, a perfect Sunday sky as if plucked straight from a picture book, seemingly mocking the grief of those gathered on one of the platforms outside the Shatterdome.

There were a few reporters and camera men scattered around the edges of the crowd but mostly it was PPDC staff, the remaining pilots of course, and family members of the deceased. There was a small podium at the edge of the platform, its back facing the sea, and seats that had been dragged outside.

Tendo sat in the second row, Newt on his right and Raleigh on his left. He hadn't failed to notice that Hermann and Newt had ended up next to each other but had said nothing. Alison was sitting three rows back, Benjie, one year old and wrapped in several warm layers, in her lap. Tendo had waved at them before sitting down.

Everyone was here – cleaning and cooking staff, technicians, Jaeger crews, the remaining pilots. The first row was reserved for kin of those they were here to remember today. 

It wasn't a very long memorial service. There wasn't even a proper memorial, just a pedestal done up in flowers and pictures of the deceased. The triplets and the Kaidanovskys shared a picture each, in sombre frames with ribbons slung around the corners. Stacker Pentecost and Chuck Hansen had a frame to themselves each. Tendo felt a pang of something unspeakable as he thought that these two veteran pilots had died drifting with someone whom they hadn't even been close enough with for a picture together, not even a casual conversation in the hall. 

„ _My father always said: if you have a shot, take it. So let's do this! It was a pleasure, sir.“_

Tendo squeezed his eyes shut at the memory, just for a second, and opened them again on the exhale. It hit him suddenly that Chuck could not have been all that emotionally stunted after all, considering that he had found words that honoured both himself, the man who was about to die at his side, and his father, listening from across the sea.

Not many people spoke. Mako and Raleigh were required to say something, if only because they had been the ones that were now officially „the saviours of the world,“ to the general populartion at least. 

Raleigh was used to public appearances from his old piloting days with Yancy and Tendo almost waited for him to break out his charm and wrap the audience around his finger like he had the cameras, way back. Of course, nothing of the sort happened and Raleigh was calm and collected, but kept chewing on the inside of his cheek as if wishing for that handful of bright candy he always kept in his pocket. 

Mako stood earnest and quiet by his side, like a pillar whose shoulders bore the heavens above her, and it seemed that the sky itself was but a faint imitation of the blue strands framing her face. Framing Sasha's bright red lipstick that she wore in her honour. Her words, when she spoke, were chosen with care and left no question of her respect and love for those that had gone before.

Tendo couldn't see it clearly, but he was sure that the reason she kept slipping one of her hands into her pocket was because her fingers needed the comfort of the Marshall's pill box.

Hercules Hansen was a surprisingly good speaker. He didn't waffle on philosophically but his words were blunt and honest. He spoke of his respect for the Wei triplets, of how Cherno Alpha's pilots had once saved his life in Vladivostok. 

When he mentioned Stacker Pentecost Tendo glanced aside at Mako to see how she was holding up now that she was off the stage. He wasn't surprised to see that Raleigh had wrapped an arm around her while she surreptitiously wiped tears from her lower lashes. He _was_ surprised to see that Newt was holding Hermann's hand and squeezing it hard on his knee. This wasn't the moment to think about such things, however, and Tendo directed his attention back to Herc who said a few words about Chuck before he finished.

They were very short words that could not do justice to the complicated relationship between the Hansens. Tendo felt his own heart cramp up in sympathy at how hard Herc tried not to cry and succeeded, but it was a bitter triumph: he was sure that a few moments of privacy with his tears would have been preferable.

The Wei clan, decked out in the red and gold of Crimson Typhoon, was so large they took up the entire stage and had to stand along the stairs and on the ground flanking the podium. Tendo caught only bits and pieces of the speech, what with his poor Cantonese and everything, but even without a single word in his vocabulary he could have said that it was about pride. That these „boys“ - „these precious boys of ours,“ the speaker said, he caught that much – had been the pride of all of Hong Kong. That people were grieving all throughout the city and that they had always wished for ways to give back to these children of their city that had made it possible for Hong Kong to remain an open port. No rationing for the people of Hong Kong, a blessing in these troubled times.

Innumerable trinkets and flowers were placed on and around and below the Weis' part of the table, one by each of the clan members.

For the Kaidanovskys there were their daughter and her grandparents, speaking only a few words that Tendo didn't understand, but they stood together like a wall.

Tendo was glad he didn't have to go up there and hold a speech as well. He had always been at the forefront of death, the one required to listen to every single pilot death that happened on his watch, but at the end of the day he was merely a techie. Not the first person to come to mind as a public speaker and that was just fine with him.

When the speeches were all over, Herc stepped to the podium again to ask for a minute of silence.

Even the cameras stopped clicking, the reporters stopped whispering to each other, when the crowd hushed. Far behind him, however, Tendo could hear Benjie, his unwitting babbling carried to his father's ear like soap bubbles on the salty breeze. Fingering his rosary, he couldn't suppress a tiny smile as he thought that even while mourning death, life would never be silenced.

  
  


  
  


Life would indeed not be silenced on this day of reflection. In this particular instance, it burst into an entirely off-key rendition of „Happy Birthday“ that clashed horribly with the Ukrainian hard house blasting in the background.

„Oh you crazy people,“ exclaimed Newt and took in the streamers and confetti that covered the mess hall like particularly cheerful eczema.

„Says the guy that plugged himself into a piece of kaiju brain with a Pons he's cobbled together from trash,“ Tendo said and grinned as he handed Newt a glass of champagne – a regular water glass because there was nothing as fancy as champagne flutes to be found in the Shatterdome.

„And aren't we all grateful for that,“ Raleigh said and raised his own glass.

It was all a bit much, really, Newt thought to himself as he clinked glasses first with Tendo, then Raleigh, then Mako, and then thought mournfully that the champagne would have lost all its bubbles by the time he was done.

The party was decidedly small compared to the crowd at the ceremony that morning, but there were still plenty of people. Tendo, Hercules Hansen, Mako and Raleigh of course. Max the bulldog was wearing a colourful ribbon around his neck that Mako must have put there. The cook and select staff that Newt had sometimes chatted with during their breaks, technicians and Jaeger maintenance crew. And Hermann, with a face constantly hovering between smiles and discomfort.

„Did you forget about your own birthday?“ Tendo asked while Maya, one of the LOCCENT staff, unveiled a bowl of punch and a monster of a cake. It said, „Happy Birthday, kaiju groupie!“ in bright blue icing.

„Nah,“ Newt said. „My mum called me just past midnight. But I – well, I _did_ kind of forget about it all day, what with, you know. The ceremony and everything.“

Tendo clapped a hand on his shoulder but his thumb was warm and comforting as it rubbed circles before he pushed Newt in the direction of the cake to cut it.

The best part, however, came a few minutes later, when the music was turned down. That was when Tendo waved for everyone to be quiet and then handed Newt an envelope. Suddenly there was silence, not even whispers or giggles or people clearing their throats.

„For your next round of ink,“ Tendo said and there was a certain solemnity in his eyes. „Because they were monsters, but they should never be forgotten.“

„You _crazy_ people,“ Newt said hoarsely and felt his eyes moisten - just a bit because he was hardcore and badass but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate love – as he peered into the envelope. There was a card inside, signed by so many people the signatures overlapped everywhere and became unreadable, and a sum of money that was going to pay for Otachi at least.

He started doing a round of thanking people and hugging them and being overly wordy with his thanks, and before long the music was thumping again and people began to stir.

„Happy birthday, brother,“ Tendo said as he pulled Newt into a bear hug of epic proportions and Newt didn't let go for at least half a minute, holding on in the hopes of people not seeing the tears that had reached his eyes after all.

Newt made a point of chatting a bit with everybody – everybody but Hermann, that was, but they didn't need words anyway because Newt had felt something lighten up in his head earlier. He tried nervously to squash the thought that had been niggling at him ever since the party had started and instead went to talk to Mako instead.

Mako was crouching to scratch Max's floppy ears but she didn't look as boundlessly enthusiastic as she usually did. Herc Hansen gave Newt a nod when he stepped closer.

„Happy birthday,“ he said. „It's – well, it's good to see people celebrating and not only mourning. I guess you'll have to forgive me, though, if I don't stick around.“

„Not at all,“ Newt said. He didn't know what else to say and there was a long pause before he added, „I'm sorry. I really am.“

Herc merely smiled. Then he clapped his thigh and Max waddled after him out of the mess hall, casting wishful glances back at the crowd of people that would surely all have liked to shower him with attention. 

„Congratulations.“ Mako was still wearing Sasha's lipstick and it highlighted her tiny smile. „You managed to survive another year.“

Newt smiled back. „Come grab some punch and more cake with me?“

They ended up sitting on a bench, balancing the plates on their knees. 

„How are you holding up?“ Newt asked and shovelled a forkful of frosting into his mouth.

Mako shrugged. „Life goes on.“

„Not for everyone, it didn't,“ Newt said and then bit into his fork so hard his teeth hurt, cursing his own lack of, well, _everything_.

Mako's mouth tightened a bit and she set her fork down to stare intently at the floor. Then she said, „It was his decision. Sensei would never have wanted to die in a hospital bed, worn down by cancer in the end. He ended his life the way he saw fit and he did it most honourably. I respect that.“

Newt nudged her knee with his and a tiny smile crept back onto her lips. He kept his mouth carefully shut though, trying to figure out his next question. He had finished his cake before he spoke again.

„This whole drift thing,“ he began. „Do you, you know, experience post-drift stuff? Like, residue of the neural connection?“

„Ghost-drifting?“ Mako raised her eyes to his and he nodded. „Well, yes. Yes, I do. Raleigh and me, I mean.“ Her brows twitched up in sudden realisation. „You and Dr Gottlieb?“

Newt shrugged and didn't look around to see where Hermann was.

„It's been making life a bit of a tricky motherfucker of late,“ he confessed and proceeded to give her way more detail than he had intended to, but this was Mako and if there was anyone that could keep a secret, it was her. It wasn't like she didn't know of his crush already; that had happened ages ago at a Christmas party after one of many cups of mulled wine.

„Ghost-drifting is a very individual experience,“ she said, choosing her words with great care. „It's not very well-researched because there are hardly any surviving pilots to do research on.“ She halted but not long enough for Newt to get in a word of comfort. “In any case I think this is something that you will have to figure out how to live with. I don't know how to help you, but if you need to talk...“

Newt sighed and nodded in defeat. „Is there any indication that it gets less with a greater distance between the pilots?“

„I don't know,“ Mako said and chewed thoughtfully on her fork. „Perhaps. I haven't heard of it yet.“

They ended up eating another piece of cake together before Newt actually paid attention to the insistent tug in his mind, like someone nervously tugging his shirt to get his attention. He looked up and caught Hermann's eye, just a bit aside from the crowd. 

Mako noticed, of course, because she never missed anything, and she took Newt's glass out of his hand and shooed him off the bench.

„Go,“ was all she said as she rose. Newt watched her stroll over to Raleigh who was sitting with Tendo and some younger crew members, the two of them sharing stories of when Jaeger pilots had been rock stars.

And because he could never deny Mako anything, Newt rose on an exhale and made his way over to Hermann before the man gave himself an aneurysm.

  
  


  
  


Hermann was holding onto his cane as he watched Newt weaving between clusters of people that patted him on the shoulder in passing. He was aware that this wasn't _just_ about Newt – some of these people had hardly ever had a word with him, but when Tendo had come around with the envelope and the card it had seemed too good to pass up. Participating in something as mundane as a birthday meant that there was still hope, that one had committed to the idea that the world would keep turning until that birthday rolled around at least.

He forced himself to flex his fingers a little on his cane because they were getting stiff. It had been a long day. Vanessa hadn't come to the memorial service, on the grounds that this was something Hermann had to go through with the others that had helped stop the end of the world, and that she wasn't personally mourning anyone. 

„ _I'd feel like a fraud if I didn't know anyone the service talks about and I'd sit there surrounded by people grieving for them.“_

In a way, he was glad. He liked keeping his private and work life neatly sorted. As far as that was possible, anyway.

The moment that Newt had looked up to catch Hermann's eye without hesitation, no questions asked, he had been close to panicking. Yes, he _had_ thought about how to talk to Newt without having to walk up to him amongst all these people and making it a public thing, because this whole thing was complicated enough without an audience already. He hadn't really thought of tapping into their mental link, though, and it unsettled him that apparently Newt had gotten the message anyway. 

„You're kind of crap at this whole social thing,“ Newt blurted out as soon as he came to a halt in front of Hermann. All bluster.

„I'm just not that fond of parties,“ Hermann said and slid his hand into his pocket. „I prefer more quiet ways of holding conversations.“

Newt just shrugged. „You had any cake yet? Come on, let's get some more, I've only had three pieces and I haven't eaten all day.“

„No thanks.“ Hermann rolled one shoulder. „I was about to leave, actually.“

„Oh.“ Newt looked as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with the information but Hermann merely nodded towards the nearest hallway, almost imperceptably so, and well, that seemed to be enough. Before long the music and chatter was fading behind them while the echoing silence in the hall became ever greater.

„Are you feeling alright?“ Hermann said finally.

  
  


  
  


_There was something distinctly unceremonial about Herc's speech, about the way he hardly polished up the way he usually talked for this public event, but that only gave his words more sincerity. They rasped over nerves and through ears right down to the core and left no one to question that this was a man who had been at the forefront of the battle, who had lost everything to the end of the world that had not taken place – except that for him, it had._

_His words turned to Stacker Pentecost._

_Hermann gave a grunt as he was washed with sentiment, choking sadness and deep gratefulness, a humble admiration that he knew was not his own._

„I want you to take your time and tell me everything.“ 

_He didn't even have to glance over at Newt or hear the way he desperately cleared his throat to hold back tears that Hermann had never expected for this reason._

_Wordlessly, Hermann held out his hand and made no sound when Newt's nails dug into his palm to leave dark crescents._

  
  


  
  


„Peachy,“ Newt said and adjusted his glasses. They were still crooked and scratched. „Why are we going to the lab?“

„I just need to pick something up,“ Hermann said and stepped inside.

His desk was arranged like a fortress, fronted by piles of papers and books, flanked by shelves, and the only way behind it was past the blackboards. This was where he headed now and tried to ignore the buzz in the back of his mind, like an insistent itch that he didn't know how to scratch.

„Here.“ He pulled open a drawer and held its contents out to Newt. „I contributed to the other present, but I figured – well, it's not like – I just thought nobody else would have the idea and you haven't blasted this one in here yet, so I thought you don't have it.“

Newt took the gift and turned it over in his fingers. It was wrapped in plain brown packing paper, nothing fancy, no bows or greeting cards or anything. The flat, square shape gave the contents away immediately.

„Ooooh,“ Newt exclaimed and held the CD at arm's length once he had unceremoniously torn off the wrapping. „ _Die Toten Hosen_! I lost track of their new releases.“ The grin on his face seemed about to jump off his mouth and dance about the lab by itself. „ _Der letzte Jägermeister – einer geht noch!_ Ha, I'll never get why English-speaking folks aren't into puns. This is fucking awesome.“ 

The buzz had acquired a glow that shot cheerful bullets through Hermann's brain. He couldn't deny he was quite pleased himself.

„Glad you like it,“ he said and closed the drawer again with a push of his cane. The tingle was almost unbearable now and made him feel a bit light-headed.

„Hm.“ Newt let the CD sink in his hand, catching Hermann's eye and his smile relaxed a bit, turned a bit less manic. „I really do. I'll be playing this all week.“

„Oh good God,“ Hermann groaned. „I think I'd better go before you start having more brilliant ideas like that.“ Then he cleared his throat. „There's – well, you seemed to be in need of some cheering up.“ He didn't mention the marks in his palm but he thought Newt rather got the hint anyway. „Is there – is there anything else? Anything you'd like for your birthday. This is not to say – I mean, loathe as I am to admit it, but you very much helped save the world and – you deserve some – some nice things. Anything?“

There was a gentle sliding sound when Newt put the CD down on the desk, his fingers absentmindedly reverent. Then he took a step closer, grabbed Hermann by the ears and kissed him.

It seemed very quiet, even though there were machines humming and tanks bubbling and, somewhere far off in the bowels of the Shatterdome, they could still feel rather than hear the bass of Ukrainian hard house.

Newt's lips were chapped as expected. His unruly hair brushed against Hermann's forehead, a tickle to replace the buzz that had been building earlier. With Newt's hands still on his ears, Hermann could hear the rush of his own blood. He thought he caught a bit of tongue – or he was simply imagining that it tasted like cake crumbs and punch - before Newt pulled back again.

„Just that,“ Newt said and even at gun point Hermann wouldn't have been able to place either his facial expression or the rumbling in his head. „And that you won't tell Vanessa, because I don't want her to think it was your idea, because it wasn't and I didn't warn you or anything so you _couldn't_ even give your consent and that's like, fucked up, that's really fucked up and I'm sorry for that, but – ah.“ His thumbs, those thumbs with the eternally bitten nails, fidgeted relentlessly with his belt loops. „It was just really really weird to know what it's like to kiss your wife but not _you_ , and that doesn't make it _better_ , you can't feel guilty now, but it's just like – ah, I guess it's my fucking birthday. And this is my payback for your whole stupid not-telling-me thing, because I figure I'd have done this today anyway if I hadn't known about Vanessa, so _there_.“

Something in Hermann had gone inexplicably calm at some point while the words washed over him and beat against his eardrums. It certainly wasn't the majority because his heart was beating at a pace that wasn't calm at all and that just wasn't right.

„Newt,“ he said and raised his hands trying to get a word in. „Newt, you're drunk.“

„I'm not fucking drunk,“ Newt snapped. „I had a glass of champagne and one of weak-ass punch, it takes more than that to get me drunk. You think I need to drink before I have the courage to kiss some stuffy, married know-it-all that dresses like an octogenarian?“

Hermann wanted to whack him with his cane for that but instead he reached out and his hand hovered – _cuffhisearpinchhischeekkisshisnose –_ and descended onto his shoulder to deliver a pat that was part apologetic, part reassuring, but _all_ awkward and shook way too much.

„Happy birthday, Newt,“ he said and left.

  
  
  


 

Newt wasn't sure how long he spent standing with his forehead leaning against a specimen tank, trying his desperate best to calm himself down, but when he found his way back to the mess hall, he found that the party was starting to dissolve. No surprise – with the birthday child gone for probably an hour, and the day being what it was, evenif it was his birthday.

His head was still swimming, sort of, just from the thrill of kissing Hermann and the tiny echo he had caught like a sonar, and he thought that maybe it had been a mistake to come back instead of having a cold shower and curling up in bed to block out the world. He certainly didn't feel much like partying anymore.

Mako found him again, after he had ambled up and down between the other party guests for a bit. She took him to the side and sat him down.

For a while they didn't speak but that was just fine, because something seemed to be on her mind and Newt wasn't sure what to say anyway, not with the feel of Hermann's skin still on his fingertips and a smudge on his glasses where his nose had bumped into them.

„Newt,“ she said finally. He nodded. „I want to ask you something.“

„Shoot,“ Newt said, plucked a straw from a glass standing nearby, and began picking at it.

„Raleigh and I are going to Hawaii,“ she said. „On the twenty-seventh, for ten days.“

„Hawaii?“ Newt raised his brows. „You sure deserve a holiday. Lots of beaches, there. Palm trees.“

„Soldiers' graves,“ Mako said and smiled and didn't that just make Newt's heart drop straight through the floor. „We're going to take a picture of the Marshall to Tamsin.“

Newt inched a bit closer. Wordlessly, though. Mako looked up.

„We were wondering if you wanted to come along,“ she said. „Maybe take a break from Hong Kong. From everything.“

 _Everything_ , and wasn't that just fucking clear.

„Yes,“ he heard himself say before his brain was even half-done processing the question and Mako smiled. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Raleigh turn his head and smile, too.

Fucking unreal.

  
  
  


 

Vanessa was already in bed when Hermann came home, but she was awake and reading.

„How are you feeling?“ she asked and laid a thumb between the pages. She'd been worrying about him, today being what it was and everything. The lines on his face seemed deeper than usual. „Want me to make some tea?“

He merely shook his head and slid into bed beside her.

„Are you going to finish that chapter?“ he asked but she was already slipping the bookmark between the pages and shifted to press her back against him. She could feel the pressure of his body against her lower back but waited for him – she wasn't entirely sure if he felt up for it, looking so downtrodden, even if his body seemed in need of comfort.

Bony fingers began tracing the unevenness of her face, dipping just briefly into her mouth before one hand stayed on her jaw, the other diving beneath the long shirt she was wearing, hitching it up around her hips.

Hermann was good with his fingers when he focused, Vanessa knew, and she enjoyed the fullness of herself and the way their bodies pressed together and his hot breath against the nape of her neck, half-caught in moist cotton.

They had had way too little time for this kind of thing of late, considering that he had been busy saving the world and she was juggling two jobs at once, not to mention the whole pregnancy business.

Vanessa lifted her arms to help him pull the shirt over her head, the contrast of one clothed and one naked body one of their favourite things to play with, and was quickly caught up again, between his hips and his shoulders and his hand that was so lovingly caught between her legs in turn. There was a stillness, a muffled anticipation in breath and the patient grind of skin on flesh because she liked it steady and pressing like this.

She wanted to turn her head around and kiss him, but if there was anything she had learned it was that this kind of operation - anything more complicated than a simple thrusting rhythm, really - was completely destroyed whenever he had to divert his concentration to something as simple as kissing. A smile stole onto her face and was whisked away by a moan, smothered by a set of fingers that weren't her own, but the smile wasn't really gone at all. 

When she came it was with her hand pressed over Hermann's, two long fingers resting between her legs, their base pressing hard and just right, and strands of her own hair twisted into her mouth. Moist fingertips brushed them away, running over swollen curves and heated, heaving skin on the way up.

Vanessa sighed and enjoyed the caresses for a moment, feeling perfectly lazy and content, as if her body was trying to melt between the sheets and the body heat behind her. Eventually, though, she slid her hand back across her hip between them and was rewarded with the inarticulated jerk and gasp she had come to expect.

She hadn't expected her hand to be pulled away so quickly, though.

„No?“

Hermann shook his head, forehead burrowing into the curve between her neck and shoulder.

„Not tonight,“ he said and his voice was suddenly as lined as his face.

Vanessa shifted onto her back so she could see his face more easily. „Are you sure you don't want that tea, _Igel_?“

He liked keeping his emotions under wrap, always had, but that had eased up long ago between them and she knew that these days he sometimes did it in order not to worry her, what with the baby and everything.

„I'm glad I didn't have to hold a speech today,“ he said instead of answering her question, staring into space.

„I watched on the telly,“ Vanessa commented and he slipped his fingers between hers on her belly. „Raleigh Becket – does he always look so serious these days? My little brother had a poster of him and his brother, back in the day. He looks so much older.“

„Can you blame him?“ Hermann asked back. Vanessa sighed.

„All these lives. All these people. And the rest of us not doing anything.“

„You live,“ he said and squeezed her hand. „That's exactly what the PPDC – and even the UN, I suppose – wants the rest of the world to do. It's what this whole war was about. For life to go on.“

Hermann leaned in to kiss her, hesitating for a split-second just before their lips could touch. She imagined his breath tasted of sugar. Then he pulled back.

„Forgot to brush my teeth,“ he said and slipped out of bed, moving unsteadily between his limp and his painfully obvious arousal.

She didn't call him hedgehog for no reason. Nevertheless Vanessa's brows furrowed as she settled back down, hands thoughtfully caressing her stomach.


End file.
